RE: I-131 Therapy & Contamination

["Muldoon, Patrick" <patrick.muldoon@med.va.gov>]

I originally posted this in private, but maybe it will be of use to
others on the list interested in this topic so, here goes:

For the last year or so we have been using spill mats from Lab Safety
for the floor.  They have herculite on the floor side and absorbent
material on the walking side.  We cut them to the size of the room and
seal the seams with duct tape.  If there are no "accidents" on them,
they can be decayed-in-storage and reused - saving money and set-up
time.  If there is an accident, that part can be cut away and replaced.
They don't slide around and tear as much as the paper we used to use.
They also seem to contain the flying contaminated hairs better ;-).

For the bathroom, we use a combination of saran wrap on the fixtures,
paper and saran wrap on the toilet, and paper on the walls.  We use the
same spill mats or sometimes just plain herculite for the floor.  We
don't put anything on the shower floor.  For one it's a safety hazard
and, two, the shower floor is usually pretty easy to clean.

I've also been toying with the idea of washing down some of the metal
sink fixtures with and iodine solution prior to therapies.  It seems
that certain areas of the sink get contaminated so bad that we have
actually filed off some metal to get the contamination.  This is an
experiment I have yet to try.

Hope this helps,

Patrick S. Muldoon, CHP
VA Medical Center, San Francisco

	-----Original Message-----
	From:	William Lorenzen [SMTP:LORENZEN_W@A1.TCH.HARVARD.EDU]
	Sent:	Wednesday, July 22, 1998 9:38 AM
	To:	Multiple recipients of list
	Subject:	I-131 Therapy & Contamination

	Want type of materials are being used to prepare a room for an
I-131 therapy.  I 
	have always used "craft" paper on a role but I am interested in
what other are 
	using on the floors, etc...

	William Lorenzen
	Children's Hospital
	Boston, MA 02115

	lorenzen_w@a1.tch.harvard.edu